Solar power utilised to produce hydrogen fuel

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed an easy, less energy intensive method to generate hydrogen fuel from biomass using solar power.

Researchers are investigating how to maximise the efficiency of renewable fuels, such as solar, wind and biomass. However, gasification of biomass to hydrogen fuel requires temperatures above 700°C, with controlled amounts of oxygen or steam.

Dr David Wakerley, from the Department of Chemistry, said: “There’s a lot of chemical energy stored in raw biomass, but it’s unrefined, so you can’t expect it to work in complicated machinery. Our system is able to convert the long, messy structures that make up biomass into hydrogen gas, which is much more useful. We have specifically designed a combination of catalyst and solution that allows this transformation to occur using sunlight as a source of energy.”

Biomass is mainly comprised of lignocellulose, a rigid structure consisting of crystalline cellulose fibres interwoven with lignin and hemicellulose, meaning it is particularly hard to break down. The scientists’ new method adds catalytic nanoparticles to biomass submerged in alkaline water. When exposed to light, the nanoparticles absorb energy and react, converting biomass into hydrogen and other organic chemicals.

This technology was developed in the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry at Cambridge. Head of the laboratory, Dr Erwin Reisner, said: “We see our sunlight-powered technology as a new and viable alternative to high temperature gasification and other renewable means of hydrogen production.”

The researchers’ next steps are scaling up the technology and they have already taken out a UK patent on it. The paper was published in Nature.